"If on-air chatter, hamfest chit-chat, forum and blog postings are a reliable measure, then a large number of radio amateurs live in constant fear of the death of the hobby. This of course flies in the face of actual data — which shows the number of licensees in the US are at an all-time high."

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This meme is faulty, the product of unimaginative thinking. “I believe that children are our future” — that sort of tired, simplistic rhetoric. The bio pages on QRZ are testament to the tens of thousands of hams who got interested in this hobby early in life, then had no time for it in subsequent decades. Only after marriage, family and career were well underway was there enough free time to consider a return to amateur radio.